Adventures in Middle-earth vs Dungeons & Dragons
Compare Adventures in Middle-earth and Dungeons & Dragons side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Adventures in Middle-earth | Dungeons & Dragons | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Journey, Corruption, Licensed IP, Low-Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Social Intrigue, Character Building | Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC |
| Core Mechanic | Uses the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition engine: roll a d20, add an ability modifier and proficiency, and compare the total to a difficulty number. Advantage and disadvantage, rolling two d20s and keeping the higher or lower, are the main swing on that roll. | Make a D20 Test by rolling d20, adding relevant modifiers, and comparing the total to a target number. Ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls use this procedure. Advantage and disadvantage use two d20s and keep the higher or lower result. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very Low | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | OGL 1.0a; Middle-earth Enterprises license | CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary |
| Cost | Unavailable | Free |
| Publisher | Cubicle 7 | Wizards of the Coast |
| Year | 2016 | 2024 |
| Best For | Groups who already know 5th Edition D&D and want a low-magic, Tolkien-faithful campaign built around travel, reputation among the Free Peoples, and slow-burn corruption instead of spellcasting and dungeon loot. It suits a long campaign that plays out the Journey and Fellowship Phase cycle across in-game years more than a single one-shot. | Groups who want heroic fantasy with configurable tactical combat, broad character options, and campaigns that span multiple levels. |
| Highlights | The Journey subsystem resolves overland travel through assigned companion roles and branching event tables, so a trek across Wilderland produces its own hazards and pacing rather than being skipped over. Shadow points replace alignment with a tracked corruption economy that climbs from the Miserable condition to permanent madness, giving each character a mechanical moral pressure tied to their class. Audiences resolve encounters with lords and elders through an eleven-culture attitude chart and an introduction check, so a hero's standing among the Free Peoples is a concrete mechanical fact rather than pure GM judgment. | Advantage and disadvantage resolve common situational effects by selecting the higher or lower of two d20 rolls. Backgrounds, classes, subclasses, and feats distribute character choices across creation and advancement. Weapon Mastery gives qualifying weapon users distinct tactical effects without replacing the action economy. |
| Considerations | None of the six classes cast spells, so a group wanting a traditional wizard or cleric has to import one from another 5e game. Combat is essentially unmodified 5th Edition, so groups already tired of standard tactical D&D combat will find the same core fight rules here. Shadow adds a second per-character failure economy alongside hit points, with permanent points that never heal and must be tracked across an entire campaign. | Spell preparation, spell slots, class features, and conditions create several interacting resources for players to track. High-level characters combine many spells and features, increasing adjudication work for the DM. Bastions add a separate downtime procedure for campaigns that use the stronghold rules. |